King Crimson
Red

Needle on the red, on the cover.
Alarm nearby. The Crimson King has burst, stressed, in deep spiritual crisis. Musically, he feels he must play the last testament, a final witness that "no, I was never the King of progressive, don’t ever compare me to Genesis and Yes because I have nothing to do with them!". And, like all brilliant athletes, he leaves (temporarily, we’ll find out later) at the peak of his form. A record that the little nu-metal disciples would do well to listen to 20 times in a row.

Distorted lacerations, metallic clangs and percussions, bass pulses that knock directly at the stomach, lyricism flowing from the worn keys of the white Mellotron, and the "oh, look who’s back" addressed to Mel Collins’ soprano sax: this is not a testament, this album is a call to gather the best of Crimson energies.
"Red", the title track, recalls the instrumental compositions of the last period: a sequence of distorted power chords, supported by a "fat" and pounding rhythm. "Fallen Angel", a dreamlike lament, based on a distorted arpeggio by the ever-unpredictable Fripp. "One More Red Nightmare", let the people raise their hand if they aren’t... stunned by the brilliance of Bill Bruford, the undisputed king of up-tempo percussion. Not a human being, an octopus lent to creative drumming.
But the absolute masterpiece we heard, at that time, on the... B-side of the record: "Starless". All the classic styles of the Crimson King are found in it, and yet the song does not "reek" of ancient, rather it projects the Crimson King into a timeless dimension. The Mellotron prepares, and then the usual, haunting phrasing of Fripp’s Gibson, never so lyrical, emerges from the farthest point of the soul; John Wetton lays down a bitter, warm vocal, one of his best performances. And then... and then comes that bridge in the middle of the suite. Two-notes-two, played by Fripp, reiterated and gradually modified, launched into the darkness, building a sequence to which the rest of the band slowly joins, to mark an emotional pain.
And then the flow into the final musical orgy, where everyone puts their immense artistic ability at the service of the Great Despot Fripp, to follow him in his dreamlike journey.

An album that in the end leaves you breathless: the needle, in the end, returns to the end of the run, exhausted but happy to have been there, near the extreme red, at the extreme emotional limit...